Ruins
by emerald1198
Summary: On a night when the world feels eerie and surreal to Drew Torres, a familiar face reminds him that life has a way of picking people back up. One-shot.


**There are some things that don't play into the series. I'm not concerned that a reader won't catch on.**

**First Fiona/Drew friendship fic, though probably not my last. Enjoy.**

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There are times when the whole city of Toronto feels silent – abandoned, almost, as if everyone up and left, following the stars in the distance. He's queer to think this way, Drew knows, and it's not as if he has the excuse to be poetic (he's failing English, and eyeliner stings).

Even so, as he approaches the old, movie rental shop – lit up so bright in contrast with the midnight sky that it is an eerie sight – he finds himself holding one thought in his hands.

_I am standing in ruins._

Dear Lord, what is wrong with him?

A bell on the door sends a terribly sudden jolt through his veins when he first walks in. There is no one manning the register.

_They've all left; they are following the stars._

If Mom thought he needed a shrink months ago, he can't imagine how she would respond to thoughts like this.

The store is made up of all blue interior; it's an odd comparison, but something about the tile that makes up the check-out counter, rounded into the corner to his left, reminds him of the locker rooms at school. He half expects Owen Milligan to emerge from one of the aisles. "You sure know how to work the ladies, Torres. Katie's trashing you on your own brother's radio show – and, damn, I heard Bee turned you down, Man. You _know_ you're losing your touch when Bianca _DeSousa_ gives you a _no."_

Drew almost throws a punch in the middle of an empty movie rental store.

God, everything is so screwed up.

Adam is two streets down picking up the pizza. The walk down Queen Street was quiet, heavy with tension and bubbling over with something that had nothing to do with his sibling beside him. Both brothers watched their feet the whole way there. "I had no idea Katie was going to say that stuff," Adam tried muttering at one point.

"I believe you." And Drew did; he just wasn't up for talking anymore.

Heaving back his shoulders, he chooses the aisle on the far right and saunters down, eyes lacing the rows of faded, chipped away covers under lamination.

Adam requested a scary movie, not a pointless slasher film but something that "actually makes you think." The thing is, Drew's too tired to read the backs of too many DVD's tonight – and also too tired to follow along with some psychological thriller designed to screw with your mind – so, with a quiet smirk to himself, he drifts through the horror section, reading only covers with red on the front.

There's a mirror halfway down the aisle that sends strange goosebumps up Drew's arms. Shining back at him is a warped sort of image of himself; the mirror is old and dusty like most things on this side of the city.

And as his eyes trace the backwards titles in the world opposite him, it's then that he sees the girl step out from behind a stack of previously watched, now for-sale DVD's. Her hair is shiny and chocolaty, her shoulders slim and engulfed by a wide-hemline shirt, the kind that Drew has always imagined to make girls seem small and modest and hesitant, and the eyes haven't changed, a watered down shade of mint green.

Having not noticed him, she shuffles through the stack, smirking, sighing, chuckling at the old titles as if she is a wistful, little girl. Or, perhaps, an old woman. He can't decide how much life she's lived.

He remembers that about her. Though they haven't spoken in more than a year and much has happened to change them both and curve their paths away from each other's, Fiona Coyne is still a girl who likes to remember things, one who holds on to memories like they are a part of her.

Back when he had pined for the girl's affection – _attention_ actually seems the better noun – he had listened to the stories she had to tell, at first out of courtesy but soon enough out of genuine interest. She was a girl who was haughty around the edges, dabbling in shallowness at times – but reminders of her past were good for quieting that part of her down (not that Drew ever dared to bring up the trail of damage behind Fiona).

He was a year stupider when he met her, naïve and hot-headed. Drew wanted Fiona before he even knew her.

And, though there weren't a whole lot of things he figured out about the girl before their ways parted, one thing that shined evidently, even at a first meeting with her, was that Fiona Coyne was a good story-teller.

She spoke of parties with glimmering lights, streets made of all things digital and neon, cities of water, and beaches dusted with diamonds. The girl knew of places far beyond the rest of the world, and though her tales intrigued him to no end, they were also constant reminders of the little he had to offer her.

Oh, they were an amusing pair, the kind that adults would chuckle at and think _"those good times." _Because everything about them was like a story book – a girl with the world and a boy without a clue. Still, he wanted her more than anything, and he didn't care that, any day, she could pick up and leave to a city that sparkles rather than dies like this one – didn't care that one day, she would – or that she would expect gold on holidays and he knew he'd be lucky to scrape together enough dough for the fake kind.

Drew just wanted something pretty and sparkling on his arm – perhaps, to prove to himself and to others (he's never truly figured out who) that he could be great one day. He could be everything. And, if you knew anything about Fiona Coyne – or at least the way he saw her back then – you knew that everything was equivalent to good enough in Fiona's world.

When it all came down to it, though, they had three real things in common, and that was all. Drew Torres and Fiona Coyne both knew how to laugh, how to dream, and how to remember.

And, by _no _means, were they ever in love.

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"Drew Torres."

He had planned to sneak away before the spell died. Fiona liked memories, so that's what they should stay, he had decided. He grabbed the first bloody DVD he saw and ducked the back way to the cash register where he cleared his throat. There is still no one there, and he hears the voice behind him.

Drew straightens out his face and turns to see her. Those minty green eyes haven't changed, still so alluring, so tempting, so proud. And as his cheeks heat up, he's beginning to think the year spent apart hasn't provided him with any wisdom.

That would, he realizes, explain the current state of his life.

(_Shambles _at best)

"Didn't expect to see you here," she purrs, and he sees that her _"look at you, you big brawny football player, you" _voice is still fully in tact. He feels as if he's being snubbed all over again.

"Nor did I you." He mutters the sophisticated words, making for a childish contradiction.

Fiona laughs like silver, all shiny and slick and _proud. _"Aw, look at you," she coos mockingly, "Still trying like hell to impress me, are you?"

And because he's bitter – that Katie Matlin hates him, that Bianca DeSousa hates him, that the whole damn world _hates_ him – he sneers, "And I see you haven't changed much. You're still a brat."

Her face drops, her eyes icing up, and she looks away towards the streets.

"Bet you just can't wait to get out of here," he edges dangerously, "Where are you planning to go after Degrassi, Paris? How about Rome?"

"Right here," she hisses, her voice hard like stone.

"Oh, but you've still got the private jet, right? I guess you're right; what's the point in moving from here when you can be anywhere you want in five" –

_"Drew."_

He's not sure why he allows her snap to silence him.

"I don't think you're in any position to judge me," she breathes as quiet as the stars outside.

And, God, he hates that. Hates her. Hates himself. Drew has nothing to say to that, and they both know it.

"Alcohol can really screw things up, can't it, Drew?"

With those words, he remembers the nights his brother leaned against the slide-in door at night, watched the stars or maybe the cars – he's not sure. "She hates me," he said over and over and over again. "She hates me."

And Drew's mother had rubbed his shoulders and whispered, "Honey, she hates herself right now."

_"Wrong," _Drew had thought, _"She hates you. She blames you. That's just how Fiona deals with shit like this."_

These were the memories he liked to leave out when he reminisced. Because the world had taken its toll on Fiona Coyne, had shaken her and thrashed her, and just when it seemed she wouldn't be able to take more, it had introduced her to the one thing that would keep her living. The one addiction that would drag her down and chip away at everything she was – and yet, it would save her, in the end.

No matter how dark, how merciless, how deceiving the alcohol could be, it did the one thing nothing else was able to do for the girl. It gave her something to fight against – threw her into a battle that she actually had a chance at winning.

Drew's brother, Adam, had just fallen for the wrong girl at the wrong time.

Oh, Adam Torres had an awful habit of longing for girls that favored Drew; when it came to these dainty, little affairs, Drew had to be careful, gentle, when he quietly lead his brother backing down.

It was one thing to respect someone like Adam, to support him, even to love him – but an entirely other thing to look past everything enough to want to be with him.

Society – and, well, basic biology – just wasn't built around Adam's dating preferences.

Hell, it took Bianca two years to even _accept _him, let alone love him. And then there was Katie who claims to have pulled away the moment she realized he felt for her that way, but Drew has a feeling she was a girl who liked to play at the edges with people.

Fiona Coyne just blinked.

She knew the world, alright, knew it inside and out. Where she came from, people like Adam were common, even normal, and Drew's brother almost found someone who was open-minded enough or perhaps crazy enough to love Adam like love was supposed to be – emotional and physical.

The thing was Fiona Coyne turned out to be just – _well_ – gay enough. For her, it was the emotional part that wasn't there. And that was something that champagne could fix in a heartbeat.

"It can," he agrees solemnly, "It really can."

The girl, with her now sober eyes and her long struggle condensed into young laugh lines, smirks. It's a light-hearted countenance that slowly drops into a grimace.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs then. Not because she's pointed out his hypocrisy, but because he really is. For what he said moments ago and for everything he didn't say when he should have. "I'm sorry that I didn't speak up when Katie blamed you for that school prank," he adds on, because she deserves an apology from _someone._

_ I'm sorry that, when I met you, I was so hot-headed that I didn't even see what was going on with you._

_ I'm sorry that I ever told my little brother to go for it with you._

_ I'm sorry that we're meeting for the first time in a year at an old, eerie movie rental shop. _

_ I'm sorry I didn't give you a friend when you probably needed one._

"That's alright," she sighs, fingering a particular DVD in the stack, and he almost forgets that he only brought voice to one of his many apologies he owes her.

Fiona idly slides the cover out of the pile and reads the back silently. It's an old, black and white film with a horse on the front. "I forgive Katie," she says, even as her eyes appear to read about the movie, "I forgive most people. You know why, Drew?" Now, she peers up at him with thoughtful, lidded eyes.

He shakes his head rather numbly.

"Because the world would be an awful place if we didn't all screw up like crazy."

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**I don't even . . . I don't know. But if you liked it, a review would be greatly appreciated.**


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